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Thursday, March 1, 2018

Keep The Faith, Having Fun With No Sunspots

I was motivated to write this today after looking at the solar flux number which sat at 67. I don't know if I've ever seen the flux this low. I think I've seen 68 a lot, but not 67. Truly, things must be really bad.

As it would happen today, with the flux at 67, I did my 258th SOTA activation on a summit near Santa Fe, NM that has no name, but goes by it's elevation, 8409. There are beautiful views in every direction, from the summit of 8409, and I enjoyed them immensely. With me, on my trek up the mountain, was my KX2, a 21ft. collapsible pole to support a 29 ft. piece of wire through an 81 to 1 transformer. I feed the antenna about a foot above the ground and run the wire up the pole in an inverted L configuration. The pole was propped up among the branches of a pine tree and I tied off the antenna to a close-by pine branch. I had the power set to 5 watts and tuned the wire with the KX2. I operated CW using the Elecraft plug-in paddle and I logged with a golf pencil on a, Rite in the Rain, index card. The temperature was a crisp 39 degrees, but the sun was shining and not wisp of a breeze. It was a good day to be on the mountain top.

I was on the air from 1642z - 1722z. I operated on 40, 30m, 20m and 17m and completed 40 QSO's in the 40 minutes that I was on the air from 8409. Also, with the flux at 67, I managed to work two EU stations, ON and EA. I heard a 9A calling me but we couldn't complete the contact. So, 40 QSO's, coast to coast in the US and 2 DX QSO's from EU was my catch for the day. Not bad for a short QRP/portable outing. Keep in mind that's with the flux at 67. I'm glad I didn't look at the numbers before I left or I might have been a bit discouraged and perhaps wouldn't have gone out at all. I would have missed the beautiful views, the warming sunshine and a QSO a minute QRP operation. I wouldn't have worked EU with 5 watts and a wire. I would have had to put off my 258th SOTA activation for another day.

The moral of this story is simple, don't look at the numbers. In fact I would recommend that you ignore them. There is plenty of fun to be had keying up your radio even when conditions, or at least the numbers, are this bad.

4 comments:

Very inspirational Mike.I looked at the numbers this morning and thought I'd stay in but now I'm going to get out and see if I can put a few qsos into my logbook. I'm not familiar with the 81:1. Googled it but came up a bit short. Can you tell me a bit about it?I've had good success with the 9:1 earchi but always looking for the next best thing.Thanks,73 Paul VA3ZC

The 9 to 1 is virtually the same thing. I went out yesterday, 2 March 2018 to Cerro Grande, a peak over 10,000ft above sea level, near Los Alamos, NM and made 25 QSO's. One of my SOTA buddies, K1JD, worked ZL1BYZ with 5 watts from there. I didn't look at the numbers before I left:-)

About Me

I've been a ham since 1989, and have acheived Top of the Honor Roll and have worked over 1,000 IOTA islands. My next frontier is 160M, 6M, QRP and Summits on the Air.
I also play guitar for The No Refund Band, www.norefundband.com . Check us out if you get a chance. Our latest CD is out on iTunes and Amazon.